Guest post from AFPD Lisa Lorish (WDVa) about her fellow Fourth Circuit appellate champion, Josh Carpenter's, big win in United States v. Chambers, No. 19-7104, 2020 WL 1949249 (4th Cir. Apr. 23, 2020).
In Chambers, the Fourth Circuit issued a very strong opinion holding that sentencing reductions under Section 404 of the First Step Act are distinct from retroactive drug reductions under sec. 3582(c)(2) and not governed by Dillon v. United States, 560 U.S. 817, 821 (2010)(holding District court, during proceedings to modify sentence based on retroactive amendment to Sentencing Guidelines which lowered the base offense level for crack cocaine offenses, properly declined to address defendant's challenges to aspects of his original sentence which were not affected by the amendment, since these alleged errors were outside the scope of the sentence modification proceeding). In the narrowest reading, the Chambers case says that district courts should consider retroactive intervening changes that affect a defendant's guideline range in response to a First Step Act motion. But there is much broader language in the opinion that comes close to suggesting that the First Step Act permits a full resentencing, and was enough to trigger a full-throated dissent.
Mr. Chambers was sentenced as a career offender in 2005 based on two prior North Carolina drug convictions. Under the North Carolina sentencing scheme which is tied to criminal history, Mr. Chambers could not have faced more than a year in prison for those convictions, while some repeat offenders could have faced more than a year. At the time of his sentencing, that was enough to qualify as a career offender controlled substance offense under Fourth Circuit law. But in 2011, the Fourth Circuit held that the particular defendant must have faced a year or more for a prior offense for it to qualify as a career offender predicate in United States v. Simmons, 649 F.3d 237, 243 (4th Cir. 2011), and subsequently held that Simmons applies retroactively in Miller v. United States, 735 F.3d 141, 146 (4th Cir. 2013).
The Fourth Circuit started its opinion recognizing that Mr. Chambers was "erroneously sentenced as a career offender" and that this designation quadrupled his applicable guideline range. Chambers. Slip Op. at 1. The Court found significant that the First Step Act authorized courts to "impose a reduced sentence" and soundly rejected the government's argument that the "as if" clause limited the role of sentencing courts to only making statutory adjustments. Id. at 9. Chambers held that in "imposing" a new sentence "a court does not simply adjust the statutory minimum; it must also recalculate the Guidelines range." Id. at 9-10 (citing Gall v. United States, 522 U.S. 38, 49 (2007)). The Fourth Circuit directly rejected the Fifth Circuit's contrary analysis in United States v. Hegwood, 934 F.3d 414 (5th Cir. 2019) (affirming district court's refusal to correct erroneous career offender desigation in context of defendant's Section 404 of the First Step Act motion to reduce sentencing). Id. at 10-12 &. n.3.
Chambers particular holding concerned retroactive guideline errors, but the Court dropped plenty of helpful language for broader use, such as:
- "Additionally, and unlike under [sec.] 3582(c)(2) and its corresponding policy statement (U.S.S.G. [sec.] 1B1.10), there is no limiting language to preclude the court from applying intervening case law." Id. at 10.
- "It would pervert Congress's intent to maintain a career offender designation that is as wrong today as it was in 2005, and under which Chambers is subject to a Guidelines range that is four times the correct range and that even at the low end is much greater than the new statutory minimum of 10 years." Id. at 12.
- "Under the First Step Act, Congress authorized the courts to provide a remedy for certain defendants who bore the brunt of a racially disparate sentencing scheme. In doing so, it did not import the strictures of [sec.] 3582(c)(2), even though it certainly could have." Id. at 13.
- "There are generally no limitations on the types of character and background information a court may consider for sentencing purposes. See 18 U.S.C. [sec.] 3661." Id. at 15.
Chambers also expressly held that the [sec.] 3553 sentencing factors apply and that the "resentencing court has discretion within the 404(b) framework to vary from the Guidelines and, in doing so, to consider movants' post-sentencing conduct." Id. at 14 (the government also conceded this point). The Court also noted the Sentencing Commission data showing that 28.2% of defendants receiving sentence reductions under the First Step Act received below-guideline-range sentences. Id.
Thank you Lisa Lorish for your guest post. Congratulations to Josh Carpenter for a big and important win for his client. The Training Divison provides sentencing resources to help you argue for the best possible sentence for your client.